


Washingtonian

by lodessa



Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Politics, F/M, Martha Longmire Lives, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:22:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26982817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: Mathias is advised to seek out a lobbyist when he gets to DC. It just so happens that lobbyist is Cady Longmire.
Relationships: Cady Longmire/Mathias
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Washingtonian

**Author's Note:**

> **Written to the anonymous request** : "May I ask for 40. exes meeting again after not speaking for years au for Cady/Mathias, please?"

“I’m sending you a number for a lobbyist we’ve worked with in the past. She’s an outsider, but her heart is in the right place and she knows how to get shit done.”

“I’m not looking to become a politician…”

“I know, but you are looking for a political solution, and I promise you Longmire is your best bet of that without losing yourself, Mathias. Talk to her, see for yourself.”

“Longmire you said?” The name makes something twist inside of him, even after all of this time.

“Yeah, Cady Longmire. The name mean something to you?”

A better question would be what the Longmire name hadn’t meant at some point. 

Walt Longmire, always sticking his nose where it didn’t belong if the conviction that it was his sacred duty. Worse yet, sometimes even being right in the end. 

Martha Longmire, with her savior complex, trying to protect the rez from itself under the belief that they were better off destitute than “sullied” with casino cash. (She might have had some points too, in the end, not that he’d ever admit that to her if they for some reason ended up having a conversation.)

And Cady… he hasn’t thought about Cady in years, not since she took off for law school with a candy colored kiss against his jaw and a casual “see you later” they both knew was a lie.

It isn’t like the whole thing hadn’t been a delusion, the summer they’d spent meeting up in secret: him chafing under the callous corruption of Malachai’s “protection” and her under her parents’ well intentioned hopes and expectations. 

It was never going to be more than that, some stolen nights under the stars betraying the people they were supposed to be, fantasizing about being something other than that or the truths they hid inside.

“Yeah. The Longmires might as well be the First Family of Absaroka County.”

“That going to be a problem?”

“I guess we’ll see,” he replies noncommittally, wondering if he should reach out to Hank Standing Bear and try to exploit whatever the deal is between him and the Longmires if he can.

But no, if Cady really left Wyoming and never looked back (which, he’s not sure if that’s cowardly or brave of her), the last move she’ll appreciate is an attempt to gain a favor through her old man’s best friend.

He’ll come at her straight. The Longmires have always liked that.

“I can make the introductions, if that would help.”

“No need,” Mathias shakes his head. 

Later, hesitating to hit the last button to initiate the phone call, he wonders if she will even remember him. It was so long ago. Another lifetime really.

He’s not sure what he wants the answer to be.

Thankfully he gets her executive assistant and is able to just leave a message with her. She calls back twenty minutes later with a date, time, and location for a lunch meeting. 

He’s underdressed, of course. Mathias is pretty sure that DC is used to underdressed out of towners, but it still makes him feel ill at ease. 

“Mathias.” Cady’s no nonsense voice interrupts his thoughts, cutting through the ambient buzz of the restaurant, as he scans the room and identifies her. “It’s been a while.”

So she does remember him, at least in some form.

“It has,” he acknowledges, accepting her outstretched hand. She’s all in black: sharp business and hand tailored. Her hair is swept up and the fine lines around her mouth and eyes betray the three decades but she still looks like Cady under it all. 

“I don’t get back to Absaroka much,” she says. “As my parents are so fond of pointing out during every phone call.”

“I finally got out,” he says, both of them clearly unsure of how to proceed.

“So I hear. Congratulations on the new job, by the way,” she tells him, clearly having done her research. “I’ll admit I kind of hoped you would take the plunge a bit earlier, but better late than never, right?”

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” he replies, not sure what to make of the first comment, of the notion that she’d thought about him ending up in DC at some point. “Though I guess really it depends on how this whole thing goes. Moment of truth so to speak.”

“Right,” she nods, “Which is why we are here. You want to actually get something done.”

“I’m told you’re the woman to see, if you happen to be native and looking to be something more than a photo-op here in Washington.”

“That depends,” she says. “What do you want to be? Why are you really here?”

He thinks about making a wry answer, something sarcastic and cynical and safe. It would be easier, it would be more familiar, but that’s not what he’s here for. So instead he just goes ahead and tells her the truth.

“I am here because I’m tired of watching the toothlessness of tribal authority and the jurisdictional nightmares that breed monsters like Malachai and enable whites to do their dirty business on our land knowing there’s nothing we can do to them. I want to close the loopholes. I want to protect our sovereignty without giving up everything else. You know it is bad, Cady. I have to assume that’s why you ended up in this line of work.”

She nods, “You must really want this, to ask for my help.”

He remembers being a young hothead, believing anyone could make a difference on their own, that there wasn’t a future where they might work together. It was a long time ago, but he has to think she remembers it too.

“Are you going to help me, Cady? Or would you rather leave the past in the past?”

He wouldn’t exactly blame her if she did. But she could have chosen any niche she wanted to make her domain and she chose this one. He has to think it means something. 

“The past is always with us, Mathias. I know that you know that. You tried to tell me a long time ago.”

He remembers. They’d been intoxicated at the time, from both the booze and the afterglow, but he remembers.

“Is that a yes?” he asks instead of acknowledging the memory.

“Yeah, I think it is,” she bites her lip and he sees the girl she used to be peak through the woman she’s become.

He’s too old to be fantasizing about her here at a business lunch, wondering if she still flushes at the lightest physical provocation, wondering if she’s not wearing a ring because she’s single or if there’s someone less than official in her life.

But there’s something in her expression when she says it he can’t ignore, no matter how bad an idea that line of thought is, no matter how much he should not think about her as anything other than a professional resource.


End file.
